


in my defense, spring

by CatchAsCatchCan



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, Magical Realism, pairing so new it has no searchable tags hell yeah, plant witch morgan frost, the liminal space of sharing a hotel room during training camp with your bro and his 53 plants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:43:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21668779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatchAsCatchCan/pseuds/CatchAsCatchCan
Summary: Morgan gets called up a month into the season. He arrives in Philly with three suits, two duffle bags full of gear, and a very large potted basil plant.
Relationships: Morgan Frost/Joel Farabee
Comments: 34
Kudos: 190





	in my defense, spring

**Author's Note:**

> I have a very large basil plant named Morgan and then Daisy mentioned plant witch Morgan Frost and then I blacked out and wrote this in one sitting instead of studying for my Spanish exam tomorrow. 
> 
> Also like three members of the gc have flower-related names so the namedrops are totally intentional. 100% of my sources are the wikipedia page for “plant symbolism” so apologies if this is something you actually know a lot about 
> 
> I love the flyers rookies, let’s blow this tag up

If you were at all magic, you knew about the Frosts. They were an old family of powerful Winter witches, and had been for as long as anyone could remember. And as the first Spring witch born to the Frost family in a century, Morgan Frost had always been a bit of an enigma.

No one was surprised when Morgan took to the ice like a fish to water; after all he was practically bred for it. But, born in April and with flowers winding through his hair, he was anything but a typical Frost. Even Joel had heard the whispers that Morgan Frost just wasn’t going to cut it without his family’s Winter magic. 

Magical family politics had never mattered much to Joel. Who was he to care about the familial drama of a world he barely belonged to anyway? His mother was a low grade Summer witch, but his father was a null, so really all that magic meant to him was his house was always a little warmer than was comfortable and their trees were always the shadiest on the block. 

Most magic was boring as hell, and truly stunning talent was rare. Sure, you had your Winters that could skate so fast they blurred, or your Summers who could literally light up a room when they got too happy, but the 2015 draft class was special. Everyone else came from a draft year like Joel's: mostly nulls with one or two low level Winter witches who could rain down a few snowflakes if they really tried. 

Matty Strome, an Autumn witch just like all his siblings, had always taken more of an interest in that stuff. One night, when all the Phantoms rookies had crashed out in his and Morgan's house, he had joyfully recounted his family's elaborate Autumn equinox rites until Isaac literally fell asleep. 

Before he met Morgan, Joel had never met someone so in tune with their own magic. 

Despite coming from a family of Winters, Morgan does Spring magic the same way he breathes, like it all comes so naturally to him he wouldn't know what to do without it. When he talks, he winds vines between his fingers, and when he gets too animated, all the trees outside start to rustle. 

In their shared hotel room during camp, Morgan has slowly monopolized the windowsill and balcony with plants he picks up from the grocery store or from the park near the hotel. Every day before practice, he pulls a petal off a different flower and tucks it into his pocket. “It’s a good luck ritual,” he explains one morning. “I brought them in here and protected them, so they want to protect me too.” 

For his part, Joel has just done his best to keep the plants a few degrees warmer than the air conditioning would have allowed.

* * *

Morgan disappears every day before practice. They're both morning people, and every Spring or Summer witch Joel has ever met has gone to bed early and risen with the sun, spending as little time in the dark as possible. Morgan is no exception. 

One morning, when Joel hasn’t been able to sleep and has just spent five hours tossing and turning in bed, replaying every last mistake he made the day before, Morgan jumps onto the bed, jostles into his side, and announces, “Hey, I want to show you something.”

Joel would have taken literally any distraction offered to him, so he levers himself out of bed and slides into his shoes. They walk out of the hotel lobby a few minutes later, and Joel realizes that Morgan is shepherding him towards the park. 

The sun is barely peeking over the trees when they arrive. Morgan drops down to the ground, legs crossed, and leans back on his palms. 

“C’mon, sit down." He pats the ground next to him. "You’re part Summer, right?” 

Joel nods. He’s not sure how Morgan knows. 

“Thanks for keeping my plants warm, by the way. They appreciate it.” 

Joel doesn’t know if he’s being literal or figurative, and then he decides he’s still too tired to try and parse it out. He drops down next to Morgan. From here, almost pressed against his side, Joel can feel how warm Morgan is. 

“So,” Morgan continues, “you should watch the sunrise. It always helps me, anyway.” 

Joel hadn’t known Morgan was stressed, like, at all. He always seems to be smiling. He must look confused, because Morgan says, “I try not to show it, but it’s hard. People expect more from me, coming from a big Winter family. It can be a lot of pressure.” 

The question comes out before Joel can stop it. “Do you ever wish you were a Winter?”

Morgan looks a little surprised, but then turns to look at where the sun is breaking above the trees. “Nah,” he says. “Watch this.”

Morgan presses his palms to the earth. Something green pokes up from between his fingers and Joel watches, wide-eyed, as the sprout shoots up and up and up. Morgan doesn't even break a sweat, pouring more magic into the earth at once than Joel has ever done in nineteen years. 

Their eyes catch and Morgan's smile softens, before he crosses his wrists and does a complicated hand motion that involves linking his pinkies together and twisting his hands over each other. When Joel tears his eyes away from the gold rings on Morgans fingers, he sees a sunflower unfurl in front of him. 

"Woah," he breathes out. He stretches out a finger and hesitantly strokes a petal. 

Next to him Morgan giggles, and when Joel looks up, he shrugs and says, "She likes you."

It takes Joel a few seconds to realize he's talking about the sunflower. 

"You can read their—"

"_Not_ their minds," Morgan interrupts. "More, like, their feelings? But not quite. It's hard to explain, I guess. I just know."

"And this sunflower likes me?"

Morgan giggles again, but ducks his head down, almost shyly. "Mhm. You, ah— you make her happy."

Joel looks at the little sunflower waving happily in the light breeze, then glances back up at Morgan. "Thanks," he says, and means it. “Thanks for showing me.”

Morgan colors brilliantly. "I'm glad, uh, I'm glad that you like her."

An hour later, there are six more sunflowers poking up from the grass, each of them taller than the last. As they're just about ready to leave, Joel hears a fast patter of steps and turns around to see a little girl in a pink dress run up to Morgan and very seriously ask, "Mister witch, can I have one? Can I have a flower?"

The girl's mother trails behind her and looks apologetic, but Morgan's face lights up. "Can you put your hands on the ground right here for me?" he asks, getting down on his knees so that they're on the same level. She nods vigorously. 

He tells her, very seriously, "Okay, can you please ask the earth nicely for a flower?" 

The girl dutifully complies, and tacks on a, "please," when her mother quirks an eyebrow. 

Morgan does another complicated hand motion and breathes out onto the earth. Just like before, another flower perks its way up out of the cracked dirt, but this time when it unfurls, it's a sunflower the same pink color as the girl's dress. 

She squeals in excitement. Morgan leans forward, whispers something to the plant, and the soft pink flower slides cleanly off the stem and into his palm. He hands it to the little girl, who looks so excited that she might faint. "Thank you mister witch!" she half-yells, running back to her mother as Morgan climbs back to his feet. 

"'Mister witch,'" Joel needles, elbowing Morgan in the side. 

Morgan's smile doesn't drop as he turns to Joel. He's got something hidden behind his back, and when Joel cranes to look, Morgan drops another, smaller sunflower into his hand. It's Flyers' orange. "Don't be jealous, Bees."

Joel blinks down at the flower in his cupped palms and resolutely does not blush.

* * *

One night, after Morgan's injury during camp made it clear he would be sent down sooner rather than later, Joel wakes up to the sounds of him shuffling around the room. He blinks the sleep out of his eyes to see Morgan crouching in front of the window, speaking softly. 

"Wharyoudoin," Joel slurs, voice cracking the stillness of the room. 

Morgan doesn't turn around. "Saying goodbye."

"You're not taking them with you?" Joel asks, not quite hiding his surprise.

"Nah," Morgan says, and Joel could see that he was trying to force a smile. "No way am I getting all these through American airport security."

"Besides," he shrugs. "They belong here now."

"Like, in the hotel? Because, bro, I don't think they're gonna let you leave them here."

Morgan screws up his face. "What? No, not at the hotel." Then he stands up and throws a pair of jeans at Joel's head. "Come on, I could use some help carrying these anyway."

Joel goes, but only because he doesn't want to exacerbate Morgan's muscle strain. 

Five minutes later, he finds him arms laden with little green plastic pots, as he struggles to call an elevator without dropping a very hearty begonia onto the hideous hotel carpet. 

Thirty minutes, four elevator trips, one Uber driver, and two near spills later, Morgan and Joel arrive at— 

"The Skate Zone?" 

"Mhm," Morgan hums, distracted by the way the begonia in Joel's left arm is trying to wrap a leaf around his hand.

"Hey!" Joel pokes at him with his foot. "What are we doing outside the rink at, like, midnight? We're not about to do any crazy healing magic right, because I'm pretty sure Bettman outlawed that after the last lockout."

Morgan lets out a startled laugh. "What? No! We're here to plant them."

Joel just blinks. "Oh." In retrospect, that does make more sense. "Wait, why didn't you just dump these in the park by the hotel?"

Morgan frowns. "I can't just dump them, dude. They belong _ here_." 

"Here?"

"With the team," he says, gently setting down his armload of plants next to a little green area by the door. "Look. This one—" a long green stem with little purple bell-shaped flowers "—is for strength." 

Next, he points at a white, spiky plant that almost certainly shouldn't be thriving in New Jersey weather. The plant almost visibly perks up when Morgan turns his attention to it. "This little guy brings protection. I figure this team can use as much as possible, honestly."

And as Joel gets his fingers in the dirt and helps Morgan put one plant after another in the ground, Morgan tells him how he's warding the team. Blessing them. 

Gardenia for good luck, calla lily for faith, poppy for success, daisy for loyalty. 

Morgan doesn't stop smiling once, even though he's almost definitely going to be sent down. Joel doesn't think he's felt that relaxed maybe ever. 

Joel watches him push the dirt down around one last plant, a weird looking shrub that Morgan says brings gratitude, and notes the way the light from the two street lamps plays across Morgan's broad smile and long fingers, and he thinks, oh.

When Morgan is officially sent down a week later, he lingers outside of the hotel room before going down to meet G at his car. Hurriedly, as if before he can change his mind, he presses a large coffee cup into Joel's hand. He holds Joel's hand to the paper cup and backs away. He doesn't look him in the eye, just says, very quickly, "It's a welcoming spell. You don't have to take it, but it'll make you feel at home wherever you are. If you want it, I mean." 

And with that, he pushes away and out the door, almost speed walking to the elevator. The door is closed again before Joel can even remember to speak; a soft, confused, "Thank you?"

When he takes the lid off the cup, which he now realizes is just a paper cup from the downstairs hotel breakfast bar, he sees a cluster of little white flowers nestled between small yellow stones. It feels warm, but not coffee-warm. It feels sunshine-warm. 

It reminds him of New York and his mom and road trips with his USNDP team. It reminds him of summer days in the park and sunflowers and—and Morgan.

_Oh._

* * *

Morgan gets called up a month into the season. He arrives in Philly with three suits, two duffle bags full of gear, and a very large potted basil plant. 

With the crush of morning practice and pre-game prep, Joel doesn't get to talk to Morgan until right after he scores his first ever goal, because they have to call a timeout to clear the ice. Morgan gets a two minute delay of game penalty, because once the puck went in the net, lavender flowers burrowed up through the ice all around him. 

"Don't sweat it, kid," G says, jostling Morgan's helmet. "When I scored my first goal, I blew out the jumbotron in the Farg." 

G is a bright Summer witch, and his ginger hair gives him away immediately. Next to him on the bench, TK laughs so loudly a ref looks over. 

TK is a null, but apparently has experience with kind of thing, because he says, "Yeah it's really no big deal. You should have seen Patty's first goal. He literally froze his skates to the ice. We had to get someone Summer to come unfreeze him." 

Nolan Patrick is as Winter witch as they come, and TK sounds a little sad as he talks about him. It only lasts a second, because he perks right back up when he snickers and adds, "Or when Marner melted an entire rink at World Juniors."

G whaps TK on the back of the head. "Let the kid go serve his time before I make them give you a delay of game too." 

Morgan skates off to the box, but seems much more relaxed than before. No one even mentions the sprigs of lavender climbing out from his gloves and up his arms. 

The Flyers lose the game, of course they do, because the Panthers were on a hell of a losing streak and needed someone to break it. The room doesn't seem to care too much though, as ear-shattering whoops and cheers break out when Morgan makes his way into the room.

"Top shelf on Bob, Frosty! Sick as _fuck_," Kevin cheers, slapping the top of Morgan's helmet. 

Morgan looks a little bashful, but his megawatt grin never dims. He accepts all the praise with cheery grace, and the room seems to light up around him. Or, Joel thinks, he’s maybe just a little bit biased.

Slowly but surely, the locker room empties out around them. As rookies, it’s their job to survey the visiting locker room for any forgotten bags. It’s a task Joel usually hates, but today—

“Hey, Morgan,” he calls, after he digs through his duffle and finds the crinkly plastic he was looking for, carefully stowed away in one of his rarely-used front pockets. Morgan straightens up from where he had been reading something rude carved into Ghost’s abandoned stall. 

“Yeah?”

“I have something, uh, for you.” 

Morgan perks up. “Bees! You didn’t have to!” 

Joel rubs a hand over his face. “It’s not a big deal, okay. Just— remember what you gave me last time?” 

Morgan’s gaze skitters away, but he nods, a little more hesitant than before. 

Joel moves his hands from behind his back and shoves something into Morgan’s hands. It’s a long white flower, a little bruised from being in his bag all afternoon, and still wrapped in the plastic from when he bought it at the supermarket.

“Daffodil,” Joel says, voice quiet in the huge, empty room. “For new beginnings.” 

In Morgan’s hands, the daffodil perks up and all traces of gym-bag wear and tear fade away. Morgan stares down at it and Joel runs his fingers through his sweaty hair, nervous. “I’m really glad you’re here,” he says.

Morgan jerks his head up and a huge grin splits his face. He leans forward and presses a feather-light kiss to Joel’s lips, so quick Joel barely feels it.

“Daffodil,” he says, bright pink and smiling so big his eyes crinkle. “For returned affection.”

“I’m really glad I’m here too,” Morgan says, and he leans in again. This time, Joel meets him halfway.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the year of no mistakes by Cristin Aptowicz
> 
> It is 1am and this is barely edited, so apologies for any typos I will catch them tomorrow 
> 
> also IMPORTANT does anyone know if Farabee has a real nickname because i'm just calling him Bees for the springtime theme and because I think it's a great nickname that they should totally use
> 
> You can also find me on twitter [@catchascatchcn](https://www.twitter.com/catchascatchcn)!


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